Chapter 6 Girls of the Forest by L. T. Meade
TOPSY-TURVY DOM
The fortnight that followed was not likely to be forgotten by the young Dales. It would live in the remembrance of each child old enough to notice. Even Penelope found the course of events interesting sometimes irritating, it is true; sometimes also delightful; but at least always exciting. Miss Tredgold never did things by halves. She had got the absolute authority which she required from the master of the house, and having got it she refrained from annoying him, in any way whatsoever. His meals were served with punctuality, and were far more comfortable than they had ever been before. He was always presented with a cup of strong, fragrant, delicious coffee after his dinner. This coffee enabled him to pursue his translation with great clearness and accuracy. His study up to the present was left undisturbed. His papers were allowed to remain thick with dust; his chairs were allowed to be laden with books and papers; the carpet was allowed to remain full of holes; the windows were left exactly as the scholar liked them namely, tightly screwed down so that not even the faintest breath of heaven’s air could come in and disarrange the terrible disorder.
But the rest of the house was truly turned topsy-turvy. It was necessary, Miss Tredgold assured the girls, to have topsy-turvydom before the reign of order could begin.
At first the young Dales were very angry. For the whole of the first day Verena wept at intervals. Pauline sulked. Briar wept one minute and laughed the next. The other children followed in the footsteps of their elders. Penelope was now openly and defiantly a grown-up child. She belonged to the schoolroom, although no schoolroom as yet existed at The Dales. She defied nurse; she took her meals with her sisters, and pinched baby whenever she found her alone. Miss Tredgold, however, took no notice of the tears or smiles or groans or discontented looks. She had a great deal to do, and she performed her tasks with rectitude and skill and despatch. New furniture was ordered from Southampton. She drove to Lyndhurst Road with Verena in the shabby trap which had first brought her to The Dales. She went from there to Southampton and chose new furniture. Verena could not help opening her eyes in amazement. Such very pretty white bedsteads; such charming chests of drawers; such nice, clean-looking carpets!
“Surely, Aunt Sophia,” she said, “these things are not for us?”
“They certainly are, my dear,” replied her aunt; “for in future I hope you will live as a lady and a Christian, and no longer as a savage.”
The furniture arrived, and was put into the rooms. Pretty white curtains were placed at the windows; the paint was washed, and the paper rubbed down with bread.
“Fresh decoration and repainting must wait until I get the children to London for the winter,” thought Aunt Sophia.
But notwithstanding the fact that paint and paper were almost non-existent by this time at The Dales, the house assumed quite a new air. As to Betty, she was in the most extraordinary way brought over absolutely to Miss Tredgold’s part of the establishment. Miss Tredgold not only raised her wages on the spot, but paid her every farthing that was due in the past. She spoke to her a good deal about her duty, and of what she owed to the family, and of what she, Miss Tredgold, would do for her if she proved equal to the present emergency. Betty began to regard Miss Tredgold as a sort of marchioness in disguise. So interested was she in her, and so sure that one of the real “haristocrats” resided on the premises, that she ceased to read the Family Paper except at long intervals. She served up quite good dinners, and by the end of the fortnight few people would have known The Dales. For not only was the house clean and sweet the drawing-room quite a charming old room, with its long Gothic windows, its tracery of ivy outside, and its peep into the distant rose-garden; the hall bright with great pots of flowers standing about but the girls themselves were no longer in rags. The furniture dealer’s was not the only shop which Miss Tredgold had visited at Southampton. She had also gone to a linen draper’s, and had bought many nice clothes for the young folks.
The house being so much improved, and the girls being clothed afresh, a sufficient staff of servants arrived from a neighboring town. Betty was helped in the kitchen by a neat kitchen-maid; there were two housemaids and a parlor-maid; and John had a boy to help in the garden.
“Now, Verena,” said Miss Tredgold on the evening of the day when the new servants were pronounced a great success, “what do you think of everything?”
“You have made the place quite pretty, Aunt Sophia.”
“And you like it?”
“I think you mean to be very kind.”
“My dear Verena, do talk sense. Don’t tell me that you don’t feel more comfortable in that pale-gray, nicely fitting dress, with the blush-rose in your belt, and that exceedingly pretty white hat on your head, than you did when you rushed up to welcome me, little savage that you were, a fortnight ago.”
“I was so happy as a savage!”
“And you are not happy now?”
“I think you are kind, Aunt Sophia, and perhaps I shall get accustomed to it.”
Her aunt whisked round with some impatience.
“I hope so,” she said; “for, whether you like it or not, you will have to put up with it. I fully intend to be kind, but I also mean to be very firm. I have now got the home in which you live into decent order, and you yourselves are respectably clothed. But I have not yet tackled the most important part of my duties, my dear Verena.”
“Oh, please, Aunt Sophia, what else is necessary?”
Miss Tredgold threw up her hands.
“A great, great deal more,” she cried. “I have not yet touched your minds; and I fear, from the way you speak, that I have scarcely touched your hearts. Well, your bodies at least are attended to, and now come your minds. Lastly, I hope to reach the most important of all your hearts. Verena, I must probe your ignorance in order to stimulate you to learn. You, my dear, will be grown up in three years, so that you in particular have a vast lot to do.”
“But I hate learning, and I shouldn’t like to be a learned woman,” said Verena. “Mother knew a lot of things, but she wasn’t learned like father.”
“Good gracious, child! I don’t want you to be like your father. To tell the truth, a bookworm such as he is is one of the most irritating persons in existence. But there! What am I saying? I oughtn’t to speak against him in your presence. And your poor mother loved him, oh, so much! Now then, dear, to return to yourself and your sisters. I presume that you would like to be a useful and valuable member of society a woman who has been trained to do her best, and to exercise the highest influence over all those with whom she comes in contact. Influence, which springs from character, my dear Verena, is the highest power that any one can get. Now, an ignorant person has little or no influence; therefore, to be kind and sympathetic and useful in the future, you must know many things. You have not a minute to lose. I appeal to you for your mother’s sake; for my dear, dear sister would have liked her eldest child to be ah, Verena! so good and so true!”
“You touch me, Aunt Sophy,” said Verena, “when you talk of mother. You touch me more than words can say. Yes, I will try to be good; but you must bear with me if I don’t take the yoke too kindly at first.”
“Poor child! I will try to make it light for you. Now what is the matter, Penelope?”
“Please, please, Aunt Sophy,” said that young person, rushing up at the moment.
“Hold yourself erect, my dear; don’t run quite so fast. There! you have got a rent already in your new frock. Now what do you want?”
“May I be a schoolroom little girl in the future?”
“What are you now?”
“Nursey says I’m nursery. But I don’t want to be nursery; I want to stay always with my own good Aunty Sophy. That is what I want. May I be a schoolroom child?”
“In the first place, you are not to call me ‘aunty.’ I am Aunt Sophia to you. I dislike abbreviations.”
“What’s them?”
“Say, ‘What are they?’”
“What are they?”
“I will tell you another time. How old are you, Penelope?”
“I wor seven my last birthday, one month agone.”
“Your grammar is disgraceful, child. Please understand that the schoolroom has its penalties.”
“What’s them?”
“Again I shall have to correct you. ‘What are they?’ is the sentence you ought to use. But now, my dear, I don’t approve of little girls learning much when they are only seven years old; but if you wish to be a schoolroom girl you will have to take your place in the schoolroom, and you will have to learn to submit. You will have to be under more discipline than you are now with nurse.”
“All the same, I’ll be with my own aunt,” said Penelope, raising her bold black eyes and fixing them on Miss Sophia’s face.
But Miss Tredgold was not the sort of person to be influenced by soft words. “Deeds, not words,” was her motto.
“You have said enough, Penelope,” she said. “Take your choice; you may be a schoolroom child for a month if you like.”
“I wouldn’t if I were you, Pen,” said Josephine.
“But I will,” said Penelope.
In her heart of hearts she was terrified at the thought of the schoolroom, but even more did she fear the knowledge that nurse would laugh at her if she returned to the nursery.
“I will stay,” she said. “I am a schoolroom child;” and she pirouetted round and round Aunt Sophia.
“But, please, Aunt Sophia,” said Verena, “who is going to teach us?”
“I intend to have that honor,” said Miss Tredgold.
If there were no outward groans among her assembled nieces at these words, there were certainly spirit groans, for the girls did not look forward to lessons with Aunt Sophia.
“You are all displeased,” she said; “and I am scarcely surprised. The fact is, I have not got any efficient teacher to come here just yet. The person I should wish for is not easy to find. I myself know a great deal more than you do, and I have my own ideas with regard to instruction. I may as well tell you at once that I am a very severe teacher, and somewhat cranky, too. A girl who does not know her lessons is apt to find herself seated at my left side. Now, my right side is sunshiny and pleasant; but my left side faces due northeast. I think that will explain everything to you. We will meet in the schoolroom to-morrow at nine o’clock sharp. Now I must go.”
When Miss Tredgold had vanished the girls looked at each other.
“Her northeast side!” said Pauline. “It makes me shudder even to think of it.”
But notwithstanding these remarks the girls did feel a certain amount of interest at the thought of the new life that lay before them. Everything had changed from that sunny, languorous, dolce far niente time a fortnight back. Now the girls felt keen and brisk, and they knew well that each moment in the future would be spent in active employment.
The next day, sharp at nine o’clock, the young people who were to form Miss Tredgold’s school entered the new schoolroom. It was suitably and prettily furnished, and had a charming appearance. Large maps were hung on the walls; there was a long line of bookshelves filled partly with story books, partly with history books, and partly with ordinary lesson books. The windows were draped with white muslin, and stood wide open. As the girls took their seats at the baize-covered table they could see out into the garden. A moment after they had arrived in the schoolroom Miss Tredgold made her appearance.
“We will begin with prayers,” she said.
She read a portion from the Bible, made a few remarks, and then they all knelt as she repeated the Lord’s prayer.
“Now, my dears,” said their new governess as they rose from their knees, “lessons will begin. I hope we shall proceed happily and quietly. It will be uphill work at first; but if we each help the other, uphill work will prove to have its own pleasures. It’s a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together that masters difficulties. If we are all united we can accomplish anything; but if there is mutiny in the camp, then things may be difficult. I warn you all, however, that under any circumstances I mean to win the victory. It will be much easier, therefore, to submit at first. There will be no use in sulkiness, in laziness, in inattention. Make a brave effort now, all of you, and you will never regret this day. Now, Verena, you and I will have some conversation together. The rest of you children will read this page in the History of England, and tell me afterwards what you can remember about it.”
Here Miss Tredgold placed a primer before each child, and she and Verena retired into the bay-window. They came out again at the end of ten minutes. Verena’s cheeks were crimson, and Miss Tredgold decidedly wore a little of her northeast air. Pauline, on the whole, had a more successful interview with her new governess than her sister. She was smarter and brighter than Verena in many ways. But before the morning was over Miss Tredgold announced that all her pupils were shamefully ignorant.
“I know more about you now than I did,” she said. “You will all have to work hard. Verena, you cannot even read properly. As to your writing, it is straggling, uneven, and faulty in spelling.”